Take it from a Coug: Mike Leach is exactly the kind of head coach the Cougars need.

I was covering WSU football for The Spokesman-Review in December 2007 when Paul Wulff was hired as head coach to replace Bill Doba. I attended countless football practices and spoke with Wulff many times, enough to know that — at least outwardly, to the media — he was one of the more soft-spoken guys in college football. He wasn’t timid or anything; he was just a low-key coach who had other ways of motivating his team than chewing guys out in front of everybody.

Leach is very much different. Granted, I haven’t spoken to him personally, but I’ve heard enough of him on the radio and on TV to know Leach is a sarcastic, gruff, even sardonic man. When WSU hired him for $2 million a year, making him one of the highest-paid public employees in the state, Pullman got not only got his football-coaching prowess but his big mouth and the eyebrow-raising way he deals with his athletes.

Many pairs of eyebrows shot up — and some mouths dropped — when, in recent weeks, Leach started calling out his Cougs for their dispassionate play, especially in Wazzu’s ugly 49-6 loss to Utah on Nov. 3 in Salt Lake City. Leach called it “one of the most heartless efforts I’ve ever seen,” describing the Cougs as “exhumed corpses” who would have blended into a “zombie convention.”

Some of the more sensitive Washington State fans out there began wondering whether Leach really fits with the Cougar Spirit. “Always be a good sport,” as WSU radio announcer Bob Robertson says, “be a good sport all ways.” But the situation didn’t come to a head until last week, when star wide receiver Marquess Wilson walked out of a team conditioning session and, for all intents and purposes, quit the team.

Two hours before kickoff last Saturday, as his former teammates were prepping for their eventual and inevitable loss to UCLA, Wilson released an “open letter” to Cougar Nation explaining why he threw in the towel. Wilson alleged abuse — verbal, emotional and physical — by Leach and his coaching staff against their athletes.

Marquess Wilson. (AP Photo)

“This was going to be our year,” Wilson wrote. “My teammates and I were aspiring to be the winning team you deserve. Unfortunately for all, the new coaching staff has destroyed that endeavor. I believe coaches have a chance to mold players, to shape men, to create greatness. However, the new regime of coaches has preferred to belittle, intimidate and humiliate us. This approach has obviously not been successful and has put a dark shadow on this program.

“My teammates and I have endured this treatment all season long. It is not ‘tough love.’ It is abuse. This abuse cannot be allowed to continue. I feel it is my duty to stand up and shed light on this situation by sacrificing my dreams, my education and my pride. I resign from this team. I am deeply sorry to those I am letting down. I am not a quitter. I was raised by my family, and many previous coaches, to exhibit dedication and embrace sacrifice, but there comes a time when one has to draw a line in the sand.”

First of all, let me say: If it is abuse, it should not be allowed to happen. And I’m not necessarily disputing Wilson’s letter — for one thing, clearly, there are some major cultural changes rippling through the Bohler Athletic Complex. Meanwhile, WSU president Elson S. Floyd and now the Pac-12 are investigating the allegations against Leach.

But not everyone on the WSU football team agrees with Wilson, it seems. On Monday, center Elliott Bosch came to Leach’s defense, telling Bud Withers of The Seattle Times about a recent scene involving assistant coach Paul Volero.

“Coach Volero came up — he had the O-line and the D-line come up — he was just trying to get us fired up,” Bosch said. “He grabbed some guys by the chestplate. He wanted to take a look in their eyes and see if they really wanted to be here, if they were here for the right reasons, if they wanted to win. That’s all he was doing.”

Is that abuse? Well, that’s not for me to judge. But these are grown men, at least by law, and are huge football players at that — not some little kindergarteners who need protection from meanie grownups.

Yet, that was just one incident; Wilson claims that the new WSU coaching staff has been treating players poorly all season long. Maybe they have, maybe they haven’t — maybe it’s abuse, maybe it’s not. But that’s an example, and it’s important to realize that not everyone on the Cougars is feeling the same as their former star.

Paul Wulff coached the Cougars from 2008 to 2011. (Getty Images)

In the aftermath of the Wilson debacle, WSU athletic director Bill Moos defended Leach and explained that the head coach has his own style of discipline. “I think the frustration came to a head and he just had a little bit of a meltdown,” Moos said of Wilson.

Moos also admitted, somewhat puzzlingly, that Wilson “doesn’t always practice hard” and that he “may have been coddled a bit in earlier seasons,” according to a report by 710 ESPN Seattle radio. Wilson had been the star of the Cougars ever since joining the team in 2010, and he set the school’s all-time receiving record as a sophomore last year during Wulff’s last season as head coach.

However, in his open letter, Wilson said that the athletic department has been trying to “cover up what is really happening in that locker room.”

That said, Wilson also noted all the players who have left the WSU team since Leach was named the new coach in November 2011. Many media outlets have been suggesting that those 18 players (including Wilson) all left because of Leach, but an excellent piece this week by KJR sports radio’s Jason Puckett dispels that myth: Most of those players were kicked off the team for rule violations or drug arrests, or left so they could get more playing time at another college, or walked away for some other reason not having to do with the new coaching staff.

Such turnover is not uncommon when a football program gets new coaching leadership. Heck, when Wulff took over for Doba, 13 players ended up leaving the team, Puckett noted.

What is common is for a football program to go through some growing pains when there’s a seismic shift in team culture.

For close to a decade now, Washington State fans have had to watch a Cougars team that lacked a distinct identity, that lacked an apparent drive for greatness, that seemed to lack the same passion Wazzu fans have for their alma mater. For many fans, “Couging it” has evolved to describe not just biting the dust at the end of a game, but also biting the dust as soon as the football is kicked off.

It’s true, after all the excitement over Leach and the changes coming to the WSU football team, this season has been a disappointment. The Cougars are 2-8 and have no wins in the Pac-12, and are averaging fewer points and fewer yards per game than they did last season.

But with a 31-74 record since making the Holiday Bowl in 2003, when the team was still mostly Mike Price’s, the Cougars are in dire need of a cultural sea change. And it takes a while for a little rudder to steer such a huge ship. Wazzu fans, already used to slogging through horrible losing seasons, ought to have a little more patience.

Yes, Leach has his reputation of allegedly abusing players — that’s officially why he was fired after 10 years at Texas Tech — but this Coug is not ready to write him off. Leach preaches discipline, drive and dedication, and that’s exactly what the Cougars need.

Mike Leach walks off the field after the Cougars lost 51-26 to Oregon on Sept. 29 at CenturyLink Field. (Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images)